The Power of Positivity...

I sought my soul, but my soul I could not see.  I sought my god, but my God eluded me.  I sought my brother and I found all three. 

Unknown

One available avenue for coronovirus entertainment this summer has been playing tennis in various pairings as a family.  Distracted by the research presentations of Dr. Bjork from the night before, I was moving slowly the following morning, dawdling in my mind palace.  Pete and I headed out anyway for a game of tennis.  Which, for those of you who do not know, I always lose.  It was sweltering by 8:30 a.m. and neither of us was particularly happy to arrive at our community association’s tennis courts to find two guys playing on the shady ones.  We trudged over to the sunny court and made the best of it.  These guys were chatty and bantered with one another after every single shot.  At first, I was annoyed.  Once I actually listened to them, I was intrigued.

“Nice shot!”

“Wow!  That is the play of the day; you nailed that cross-court shot!”

“Your serve is so good this morning, I am starting to think I need to wave a white flag and surrender!”

On and on and on it went - endless compliments and words of affirmation.  Questionable line call?  No Problem.  “Hey, I think it was in!”  Response:  “No, I cannot take that point, I’m sure it was out.”  Reply:  “Well, let’s play it over!” …”Ok!”  

Who ARE these guys, I wondered?  Business partners?  Best friends?  New acquaintances trying to impress one another? No, no and definitely not.  After finishing their set, they offered us the shady court and our switch over was the fastest either of us moved all day.  As they were leaving, one guy referred to the other as “my brother”.  It was all I could do to resist asking for an autograph or an interview on the spot.  I bet these guys are resilient; I bet they thrive in life.  What would your life be like if you had a sibling who enjoyed your wins more than their own?

 (We had a slight email snafu, get caught up here)

The Relentless Pursuit of Hope

Let’s talk William Penn and Native American history. Let’s consider how the Quakers applied what they learned when they sat together in silence, listening for the God of their understanding. The news is mixed.

Penn himself believed that Native Americans should be treated fairly. He befriended the various tribes both near and far (including the: Delaware (Lenni Lenape), Erie, Honniasont, Iroquois (Iroquois of mixed ancestry were called Mingo), Saluda, Saponi, Shawnee, Susquehannock (Andaste), Tuscarora, Tutelo and Wenrohronon tribes.

In fact, Penn himself orchestrated a peace treaty between the various tribes and insisted on paying a fair price for their land. This treaty was signed in 1755. But the state of Pennsylvania never recognized Native American rights to land within its borders and by the 1790’s, only one small community remained.

How do we make sense of such good intentions and the demise of friendly co-collaborators for a peaceful and just society? This stuff just keeps happening!!! Maybe that’s why sometimes I lose all sense of hope; I keep hoping we humans will get our s*** together and learn how to respect each other and share. Try entertaining two toddlers in quarantine and see how you feel about mankind’s capacity to share! Today my granddaughter said, “Meme, stop. Mine body.” (She’s a genius.) Good boundaries? Yes! But I was rescuing her from her own willful ways as she tried to ride her tricycle down a sliding board! Life is hard.

Nevertheless, whether we succeed or fail, I am reminded of the author of Ecclesiastes concluding that in spite of everything, it’s important to run hard after God. Of course, Proverbs teaches us that God loves to be caught. Spend quality time with two toddlers during quarantine and see how you feel about mankind’s capacity to love! Today I watched Pops crawl into a tent thingy with Norah and Christian, his long legs dangling out of the tent flap. Little toddler giggles trilled through the air as they enjoyed their Granddaddy in the middle of a work day, because, well, quarantine. I keep returning to hope. No matter how grumpy I get, hope pursues me with relentless determination.

The Inconvenience of History

I love everyone who loves me, and I will be found by all who honestly search.

Proverbs 8:17 CEB

Did everyone leap and shout a hallelujah chorus over finding this light? Nah. According to Paulette Meier, this is what happened:

“The Quaker movement was seen as a huge threat to the state and Church of England, and later to the Puritans as well. The Quakers—also known as the Religious Society of Friends—had no use for the hierarchy, nor the rites and rituals of the church, and believed they were re-igniting primitive Christianity. They refused to pay the church taxes or to carry out social norms that put one class of people higher than another, such as tipping one’s hat to a person of nobility. They were also opposed to war and violence, which did not help their situation with the state. It was their deep conviction and inner peace that allowed them to withstand the brutal oppression that came down on them in the form of long jail sentences, confiscation of property, and torture. Thousands were imprisoned and hundreds died there. William Penn was owed a big debt by the King of England, and he managed to acquire land in the American colony, which is how so many Quakers were able to flee English persecution and come here, where they played a huge role in establishing freedom of religion in the formation of the U.S.”

And...in so doing, they eventually displaced the indigenous people who had claimed this same land as their own long before the Quakers needed a sanctuary. I’m not sure that those folks felt the same enthusiasm for this move as the Quakers fleeing persecution.

History is so inconvenient.

And yet, whether we are reading about history or living it, this is what we have to work with. How do we center ourselves in a world that so often requires one person’s gain to be another’s loss? How do we love others? How do we imitate a God who is eager to be found and recognized by the light of his love?

Who are the Quakers?

 (We had a slight email snafu, get caught up here)

Who are the Quakers? Paulette continues her teaching…

”In 17th-century England, at a time of civil unrest and great religious ferment, the first Quakers found a collective way, through silent waiting, into the radical transformation of consciousness that Jesus invited his followers into. There were a lot of people who were unhappy at the time with the existing denominations, especially the Anglican Church, which collected taxes to pay professional clergy who did not necessarily have a real calling to the spiritual life. There was a hunger for more meaningful spiritual experience, and one such seeker, a mystic named George Fox, had visions that moved him to gather all these seekers together and to teach them that what they were seeking was within them. It was like “a Pentecostal moment in time,“ because as hundreds of people gathered together in centered stillness, they had deep transformational experiences based on their experience of what they called “the Light of Christ within.” This Light opened them to see the truth of their own lives, to see their own ego-based behaviors, and to see how the society they were living in was not in alignment with the ultimate truth of Love. This new seeing, as painful as it could be, ultimately filled them with deep peace and joy—the peace, as Jesus said, that “passes all understanding.” “

Here is what I love love love about this description of the early Quakers (and I so hope it is accurate). “This Light opened them to see the truth of their own lives, to see their own ego-based behaviors, and to see how the society they were living in was not in alignment with the ultimate truth of Love.”

This really speaks to the same kind of things Scott talked about in his Sunday message at Northstar Community on July 12th (posted online somewhere). Their silence, stillness and collective watching for God woke them to their own personal vulnerabilities and limitations. It inspired them to see their part in the disruption of a society that could have been in alignment with love but was, alas, not. This is so helpful. It is the antithesis of cherry picking bible verses to justify our behaviors as holy. How can we support this same quest in our world today?

Wisdom, Sanity, Knowledge, and Discretion

The scriptures speak of many things that are hard to believe. Jonah survives in the belly of a whale. One family manages to live on a boat filled with animals in pairs without killing each other during a flood for the ages. God keeps picking weird and weak and unlikely characters to carry his message of hope to hurting people. The most righteous among his people loses his shirt, his health, his family, his reputation and his side-hustles in some strange social experiment testing the motivations of a man who loves God with all his heart, mind, soul and strength. And then we find a passage like this one:

“I am Lady Wisdom, and I live next to Sanity; Knowledge and Discretion live just down the street. The Fear-of-God means hating Evil, whose ways I hate with a passion — pride and arrogance and crooked talk. Good counsel and common sense are my characteristics; I am both Insight and the Virtue to live it out. With my help, leaders rule, and lawmakers legislate fairly; With my help, governors govern, along with all in legitimate authority. I love those who love me; those who look for me find me. Wealth and Glory accompany me — also substantial Honor and a Good Name. My benefits are worth more than a big salary, even a very big salary; the returns on me exceed any imaginable bonus. You can find me on Righteous Road—that’s where I walk — at the intersection of Justice Avenue, Handing out life to those who love me, filling their arms with life—armloads of life!”

Proverbs 8:17 The Message

If Paulette Meier has correctly captured a slice of the 17th century - how would these verses have been received? How do we hear them today? Do we believe that history has taught us that rulers and lawmakers lead wisely and rule fairly? Sometimes? Always? Never? I suppose the answer depends. Do we believe, as some do, that the benefits of loving God include wealth and glory and honor and a good name? I am really not sure about that one! But this I can buy. I’ve seen it with my own eyes in the lives of others, and therefore, I have hope. These characteristics like to hang out and pal around. Wisdom, sanity, knowledge, discretion, humility, straight talk, wise counsel, common sense, insight and virtue go together like peanut butter and jelly on my friend Anne’s homemade sourdough bread. Fox suggested we find these things in the silence. He noticed that awareness was heightened as Quakers sat together in it. Although inspiration might be found in an email, good book or daily devotional - the work of experiencing the Lord consciously and near to us comes as we become suspicious of cheap talk and committed to a good sit among those who seek unity, walking, and awareness of His presence.